So, you have finally decided that the days of turning on your appliances yourself are ancestral! “I am no longer a caveman!”, you say to yourself as you yell at your Alexa to play that one song you haven’t been able to get out of your head all day. However, what you may not know is that those who have “home automation” have taken numerous hours planning, configuring, and testing to have everything work correctly and reliably. Home automation is the future, but if you want to take part, you must have a carefully laid out plan, as well as the tools and knowledge to do so correctly. What makes having a “smart home” so wonderful is that at any given point you can decide to add or remove smart devices at your leisure! The possibilities are only limited to how far we have come technologically speaking! Many of the devices you find in a home today are made with the idea of setting up a “smart home”. Regardless if you have an iPhone and Android device, you can take part in having a “smart home”. Even Amazon has their device, Alexa, that has been designed to be used with home automation. However, these devices are not plug and play. Time must be set aside in order to properly prepare your home. If you are still reading, it probably means you are interested in learning about what you will need in order to take your lame home to “Smart Home”! Well, I have good news and some bad news. The good news is that today you will learn exactly what you need in order to do so; the bad is that it doesn’t come cheap (if you want it done correctly). The following is what you’ll need: A Plan: First come up with a plan. What do you want to be automated? Do you want all the light in your home automated or just the ones in the living room? Do you want parts of your home left out, such as the garage, but have the rest automated? Figure out what you want to be automated and where before purchasing anything! Chose a Controller / Hub: Decide what you are going to use to control all your smart devices! You have many choices so make sure you pick one you are most comfortable with. Do you enjoy Amazon? Perhaps Alexa is the choice for you. Do you favor Google? Google assistant is a great way to have your Android Device as a controller! Maybe you fancy iPhone; Apple is another great way to use your phone with your “smart home”. Perhaps you want to use a different brand not associated with a major corporation; then you should look at Wink! Are you loyal to Samsung? Well, have I got news for you! Even Samsung has its smart hub controller for you to utilize: SmartThings. Make sure you take your time when decided on which controller you want to use! After all, this is how you will interact with your “smart home” once it is set up; make sure it is the product you are most comfortable with! Wifi-Network: You don’t need the $500 router that has 17 antennas and allows for the NASA quality download and upload speeds, but you will need quality! With quality comes a stronger, more stable connection with a wider range. Consider investing in a nice router from Asus or TPlink! We guarantee you will have a better experience if you do! Schedule: As we said earlier, setting up “smart home” takes numerous hours of planning, configuring, and testing to have everything work correctly and reliably. There is no easy road when it comes to home automation. If you want it done correctly, set aside time so that you can ensure it works! If you don’t have time, consider higher someone who can do it for you! I hear Hammett Technologies is good at setting up smart devices and networks! What You Can Do with a Smart Home Now that we have all a plan set in place, have decided which controller we want to use, have purchased a reliable router for our network, and have time on our hands, we can begin to play around with smart devices! There are countless devices out there today that can be used with a smart home. Everything from lights to those cute robot vacuum cleaners, just about anything can be set up for use in a “smart home.” Below are some of the possibilities, and this is just scratching the surface! Possibly the most popular smart device to buy is the lights! Philips Hue lights are a great example of this, although there are cheaper options out there that do the same thing. Hue bulbs allow the user to set timers for when they come on and even have RGB capabilities; perfect for those “set the mood” moments. Next, we have the thermostats! These are great for those who are often away from home for long hours and wish to keep the gas & electric bill low! You can have the thermostat lower the temperature while you are away and raise it while you are on your way home! This way, during those cold winter nights, you can come home to a warm house, without having to keep it warm all day! Or perhaps you are cold in bed and don’t want to get up! You can raise the temperature right from your bed and eliminate that chill in the house from under the covers! Last but not least are Smart Locks! Do you worry about packages getting stolen? Do you want to see what happens to your home while you are away? Get a Smart Lock! You can feel confident with one of these installed on your door. Many come with cameras nowadays and allow you to create virtual keys for family and friends! No more trying to find your keys in the dark, hold your
Understanding how your business is spending money is essential if you want to be able to save money. In our previous blog post, we discussed how important it is to review both OPEX and CAPEX costs. Now we will go over the importance of reviewing discretionary and non-discretionary costs. Both discretionary and non-discretionary costs are vital to look over if you wish to help your company save money. Furthermore, understand how your company spends these expenditures will help your business in the future as well. Discretionary and Non-discretionary Costs When it comes to saving money, it is important that you review all expenditures your business has. Usually, discretionary costs are the first ones to get cut, however, we encourage you to dig deeper when cutting costs. Looking at non-discretionary costs, such as infrastructure. Looking towards usage, service, and consumption levels is vital to making sure you are able to save money and cut spending on your IT department. Therefore, when cutting costs, make sure you inspect all your expenditures. It is vital to leave no stone unturned if you wish to truly cut costs. However, we understand that this can be quite difficult at times. Especially if you are unsure as to what is vital to the department on not. How Hammett Technologies Can Help We understand the difficulties many business owners face when dealing with their IT departments. It can be extremely difficult to determine where to cut costs and what to leave alone. However, with our help, you will never have to worry about that again. Hammett Technologies works with you to make sure you never have to worry about whether or not your business is wasting money on non-important items. Hammett Technologies walks with you to ensure that you understand all the ins and outs of how we are building your IT department.
When it comes to saving money, it is important that you focus your attention on the right areas. Last time, we spoke about how taking a holistic approach, covering both operational and capital expenditures were essential to making sure your business is efficiently saving money. However, at times, it can be difficult to decide where one’s attention should be focused when downsizing. Focusing on Rapid – Reductions Rapid reduction implies the idea of rapidly reducing the spending and cost of your IT department. In order to do this, one must refocus their attention away from already spent money. Instead, focus your attention towards areas that can be immediately downsized, such as hardware or software licenses. Downsizing hardware and software can result in immediate savings, allowing your company more breathing room. However, while it is important to focus on rapid reductions areas, this does not mean to ignore sunk costs completely. As we said earlier, taking a holistic approach to saving money is the best course of action. When reviewing the IT department, do not leave any stone unturned and review all possible avenues to save money. Therefore, even those the money has already been spent, ensure that you still review these sunk costs, inspecting them for possible termination in the future. Hammett Technologies Helps Your Business Reduce and Reuse Hammett Technologies understand how to help your business save money. We reuse your old hardware, upgrading and fixing issues to bring them up to date. We review and revise how we work with your company, ensuring you know exactly what you are paying for, and work with you to make sure you get the most cost-efficient payment plans. Through this, we strive to ensure that your company is able to stay up to date and secure, without breaking the bank.
Hammett Technologies is quite familiar when it comes to uncovering hidden fees and costs in contracts with third parties. We have, on multiple occasions, been brought in to assist a company whose IT department was failing them, leading us to discover that their previous IT department was poorly managing their security, hardware, and software. Therefore, it is important that, after hiring any outside sources, you regularly review the contract you have with them. You may uncover that they are not living up to their promises, something Hammett Technologies finds deplorable. Targeting and Reviewing Contracts When it comes to saving money, businesses must keep a close eye on contracts they have with third parties. If you are the owner of the company or department, consider investigating and renegotiating current contracts your business has. Doing so may lead you to uncover hidden charges or fees or may lead you to finding out you no longer require their services. It is important, especially today, to keep track of every dollar that is spent by your company. During unprecedented times, ensuring your company is able to save money where it can be vital to surviving as a business. Therefore, when it comes to saving money, we recommend reviewing contracts for renegotiation or possible termination. This is where you can expect to save the largest sums of money for your company. How Hammett Technologies Can Help By choosing Hammett Technologies as your IT department and business partner, you are ensuring your business is able to save money and remain secure digitally. Hammett Technologies prides itself on its ability to provide cutting-edge, professional IT support without hurting your business economically. We review out contracts with your company on a quarterly basis to ensure that you are kept in loop regarding how we are interacting with your business. Through our upfront, honest behavior, to our professional team who are determined to help your business with all its IT needs, Hammett Technologies is a partner you can trust.
Hammett Technologies understands how important it is for businesses to save money, especially during a global pandemic. Remember that when it comes to cutting costs, it is vital to remove expenses that will not only permanently bring down the company expenses, but also ensure money is being saved. Hammett Technologies hopes to be able to, as a partner to your company and as a reliable source of information, guide you and your business on the road to saving money when it comes to your cybersecurity, efficiency, and accessibility. Cash Reigns Saving money and cutting costs can be difficult. It is hard to find areas where you can remove expenditures from your company without compromising departments and their ability to provide services to your company and your customers. However, in order to ensure that your company is able to save money where it can, it is necessary to remove expenses that are either no longer needed or seem unnecessary. While most businesses focus on removing hardware expenses, when it comes to cutting costs around the IT department, focus your attention to software as a service (SaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IasS). SaaS and IasS are expected to grow 17% in the coming year, up from 227.8$ billion in 2019, according to Gartner. Therefore, if you are expecting to make a dent in your business’s expenses and begin to cut costs. How Hammett Technologies can Help When it comes to saving money, Hammett Technologies is the king. We understand how expensive it is to run a business, and on top of that, run an IT department. Therefore, with both business experience and IT experience, we perfectly grasp how much it takes to run a secure, efficient, and accessible IT department. We never cut corners but always ensure that your company never feels a heavy hit when the bill comes. Hammett Technologies ensures that your company’s IT department runs smoothly, discussing and explaining every potential purchase with you to make sure that you fully understand and know you are not wasting money.
As we have stated multiple times before, when it comes to saving money, it is important to look over all expenditures. This “review of business expenses” should include both variable and fixed costs. We understand that it can be difficult to determine which expenses should be cut, especially when it comes to cutting fixed costs. However, in order to save money, it is important that you consider all your options. Cutting Variable and Fixed Costs Most businesses, when trying to save money, only consider variable costs, such as contractor labor. This is not to say that there is no money to be saved by cutting your variable expenses. Your business could recover much of its lost revenue by reducing its variable expenses. Cutting variable expenses also tends to be easier to cut, since they include utility costs and communication costs. However, in order to save the most amount of money, you and your organization cannot be afraid of inquiring about your fixed expenses, such as payroll or rent. Addressing fixed costs is, understandably, more difficult, since it can result in possible relocation of your business headquarters or termination of an employee. Nevertheless, while cutting fixed costs is more difficult, it is necessary to consider. In fact, it is possible to reduce your variable expenses by cutting fixed expenses, making it even more important to address when discussing cutting costs. How Hammett Technologies Can Assist Hammett Technologies understands how important for businesses to save money, especially during a global pandemic. That is why we walk you through our processes and ensure you are getting the top-tier quality, without breaking the bank. Hammett Technologies has experience in providing professional IT support without the professional cost, making us an asset to your company’s future development and cybersecurity. When you choose Hammett Technologies, you are choosing a business partner who will help guide your business through cyberspace safely and securely, without hurting you financially.
As an MSP, Hammett Technologies understands how important it is to save money without degrading the quality of service. However, when it comes to saving money, businesses often aim to “freeze” current subscriptions for a short while, going without services for a short time in order to save money. What is often overlooked is that this is a short-term money-saving strategy and will ultimately do nothing to help your business. Instead of “freezing” assets, look for areas in your IT department that can be reduced and cut back on permanently. Similar to our last post discussing how your business should target immediate impact areas, it is important to assess the importance of anything you are “reducing” from your business. Don’t Freeze, Reduce When it comes to saving money, it can be easy to cut back on some subscriptions and licenses that are not immediately necessary. However, this tactic often overlooks that that money-saving strategy only solves your business’s monetary concerns for a short time. You are not removing those subscriptions from your docket, rather you are “freezing” them. This means that, unless you are able to increase your business’s monetary income substantially, by the time it comes to renew those subscriptions and licenses, your business will be seeing red again. Hammett Technologies recommends that you begin to look for areas in your IT department that can be reduced and removed completely. This strategy, while more difficult, will result in your business being better able to track its profits and losses without worrying about “frozen items”. We understand that it can be difficult to track down and eliminate areas your IT department may not need any longer, but in order to ensure the safety of your business and those who are working for you, you must be able and willing to reduce, not only freeze assets. A Business Partner You Can Trust Ensuring that your business can stay afloat through pandemics, economic crises, and other serious situations is not only important to you, the business owner but to Hammett Technologies as well. As a family-owned, self-started business, we understand the lows and highs of the business world. We want your business to succeed, and we believe that by following these tips, it will not only succeed but thrive.
Hammett Technologies prides itself on its ability to offer businesses a cost-effective way to manage their IT department. Each of our technicians are trained professional who managed, assist, and guide you and your business on ways to increase security, functionality, and efficiency, without breaking the bank. We wanted to share with our readers ways that you can help your business cut down on IT costs. Over the next few weeks, will we outline ten (10) useful tips that will help you save money, without degrading the quality of the IT Department. Target Immediate Impact When it comes to cutting costs and saving money, the first thing CIOs should look for is unnecessary costs and subscriptions. It is relatively easy for businesses to overlook these small subscriptions, some of which may only come in at $100+ a month. However, when there are multiple subscriptions, the costs can be staggering, often without one realizing. Therefore, your first step to cutting down costs of your IT department should be to look for subscriptions or quarterly licenses that are no longer needed. While doing this it is important to not go overboard. If the removal of said subscription or license could result in weaker security or possible corruption of data, do not, under any circumstance, remove those programs from your expenses. If information were to become corrupted or stolen, the cost of having the data restored or dealing with the fallout of a lawsuit is far more expensive than keeping the software in the first place. Why Hammett Technologies Hammett Technologies prides itself on its ability to maintain a healthy, state-of-the-art, IT Department without cutting corners and without breaking your business’s bank. We ensure that your company is only spending what it needs to spend for its IT Department, with no hidden costs and complete transparency. We break down every payment and all your options so that you, not only know what you are paying for but also understand how it will impact and improve your business. Hammett Technologies is a team of dedicated individuals that want to help you, and your business, grow and thrive.
As businesses become more and more connected to the internet, the threat of a data breach only increases. A study conducting by the University of Maryland in 2017 discovered that, on average, computers with internet access are attacked every 39 seconds. While this figure may be worrisome, this should come as no surprise to most. As technology continues to progress, becoming more and more a part of not only businesses but individual’s lives as well, criminals will try harder and faster to obtain access to confidential information. These attacks are not cheap either. A study conducted by IBM found that on average, a cyberattack can cost $3.86 million. This number does not just reflect the damage the breach cost, but it also factors in loss of business, time spent on recovering, and damage to reputation. Taking steps to prevent an attack from happening is imperative. One must have the proper equipment and policies set in place in order to counter cyberattacks. However, attackers are becoming smarter, more resourceful, faster, more aggressive. Many of them are also playing the long game as well. Lying dormant in a companies, or individual’s computers or server, waiting for the perfect moment to attack. While cyber security specialists are doing there best to stay 1-step ahead of criminals, there is only so much that can be done. Therefore, instead of playing a game of cat and mouse with attackers, cyber security specialists should be turning their attention towards using machine learning and AI to aid them in this constantly evolving battle. Why Machine Learning and AI Should Be Recruited Cybersecurity usually relies on methods of created static rules and policies that act as barriers to attackers. These barriers, regardless of how strongly built, are susceptible to cracks and leaks, allowing for unwanted guests to enter. This creates a constant game of catch up, rather than enforcing constant protection. This is especially true since cyber criminals are constantly evolving their viruses, making them stronger and harder to detect. If rules are not kept up to date, and scheduled maintenance is not regularly done, disaster can strike at any moment. Machine learning and AI can help level the playing field. Even though cyber security specialists will remain as the last line of defense against attacks, AI and machine learning can be used as the first line of defense. AI and machine learning are constantly updating and learning, feeding off information from databases about cybersecurity and networking, as well as information from its experiences while deployed. AI and machine learning add automation to your cybersecurity team, aiding them in evolving and keeping your data safe from criminals. Hammett Technologies is specialized in cybersecurity, using only the latest cybersecurity software and hardware to keep your data safe. When you partner with Hammett Technologies, you hire a partner who learns your employees, your business, and your process.
On a Windows machine, there are multiple ways of taking a screenshot. However, there are plenty of users who are still unsure of how to do so. Today we will review a few ways Windows users can take a screenshot on their PC. Snipping Tool Since 2002, Microsoft has implemented the snipping tool into its Windows machines. The tool is simple to use and allows users to capture their screen! However, Microsoft hides this tool from plain sight, leaving the tool undetected to new users. Navigate to the Start Menu Type “Snipping Tool” Select “New” and begin capturing your screen! Once you have selected “New”, a white filter will appear over your screen. Click and drag your mouse across the area you wish to capture. Microsoft has confirmed that in a future update, the Snipping Tool will be getting a new home! Snip & Sketch, very similar to the Snipping Tool, has an improved user interface (UI) and a built-in shortcut to activate it on Windows 10 machines (Windows Key + Shift + S). However, it is important to note that Snip & Sketch is still in development, therefore bugs may still be present in the software. To launch Snip & Sketch, either use the shortcut (Windows Key + Shift + S) or search for in the Start Menu (Figure 1).Figure 1Figure 2 Using the shortcut will allow you to immediately begin taking a screenshot. Searching for the program in the start menu will bring you to a home screen for Snip & Sketch (Figure 2). If you choose to search for Snip and Sketch in the Start Menu, the steps are the same. Simply choose “New” and begin to capture the desired area of your screen. Third-Party Apps While the built-in screen capture tools are nice, there are some third-party applications that I find to be much more reliable and easier to use. For example, Greenshot is a free, lightweight, program that is great for screenshots. In fact, its how I built this guide! Download Greenshot from their website: https://getgreenshot.org Once downloaded, either navigate to your system tray (“ ^ “ icon on the bottom right of your screen) and locate the Greenshot application. A shortcut is also available after installing Greenshot. Simply press the “PrntScr” key on your keyboard to enable immediate screen capture. You may have to press and hold the Function Key “Fn” on some keyboards in order to activate “PrntScr”. Once you have click on the Greenshot application in your system tray, a menu will appear with a list of options. Select “Capture region” to begin your screen capture. If any of the above confuses you, please do not hesitate to reach out to us with questions! We are more than happy to help! We have techs standing by to assist you with the day-to-day operations of your machine! If you are curious as to how we can assist your company to grow, click here!